Ben Welsher | Writings

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Ben's Londunroamin'

I intended to ask if my geographic romanticism could so easily be put aside as my...er...romantic romanticism. As I read Ian Nairn's words about some favoured piece of architecture that was demolished 35 years ago and that he saw but that I cannot I feel emotionally bound to the past. Bound to 'a better time', 'a happier time', a not now. But then in the next entry in 'Nairn's London' he is describing another building pulled down before he could see it. This building isn't even remembered by a photograph with the pencil engravings and their soft focus lending it all the more mystique and evocation of those better times. Did Nairn feel like a man out of place? That if only he cold go back before the bombs and before the rubble and before the concrete he'd know himself? If so I'd feel a little better. And a little worse. Better to not be the only one and, indeed, I would be in esteemed company. And worse because this debilitating fantasy affe...

Unconscious coupling part 2

The bag feels light, almost weightless as I bustle through the station en route to missing my train. I'll miss my train because I can no longer control the whirlwind, because the tiger I'm riding cannot change its stripes. Missing this train took a minute of ill-preparedness which took a day of muddled thinking which has taken weeks of bi-directional candle-burning. And I won't miss this train because, for now, the tiger loves me and wants me to be happy. It carries me to the ticket barrier and we bound through. It smiles its Cheshire Cat smile at the staff who whisk me past the queue. It settles me in my seat with such silken grace as to make all this seem so easy, so inevitable that a greater romantic than I (and that is no mean feat) would cry 'destiny!' But the tiger just smiles. And if I've manifested away the rough edges of my chosen course and sworn there are no rocks below the lovely smoothness of this water then I have also pressed my wet finger to th...

My kingdom for a bumjet

Day 131 - Malacca Someone always has it worse than you. If there is someone telling you that then they have, statistically speaking, a 99.99% probability of being right. It's not always a great deal of comfort as a person's suffering is uniquely their own but it is unimpeachably true. It's true unless you are that one person who has it worst. And if you are then you have my woefully inadequate sympathies. The person that caused my bus to Malacca to make an unplanned stop wasn't that person but he did cause me to stop feeling sorry for myself. He'd eaten something that didn't agree with him and, despite what was no doubt a considerable period of clenching and hoping, he could hold no longer. The driver pulled the bus over to the side of the motorway grudgingly accepting that a disrupted timetable was better than disrupted upholstery. The unfortunate guy whose bowels could take no more probably couldn't think of a worse situation in which to empty them. Car...

K.C and the Sunshine Gang

Day 124 - Perhentian Kecil And so, what cure for a broken heart? (tiny, plastic violins strike up) Distance - I was 438km from Kuala Lumpur Sun - it beat down Sea - ...onto the glistening blue waves Sand - over there between the land and the sky Sex Scuba - my name was on the board I'd arrived on the Perhentian Islands mid-morning after a little 14-hour bus journey. And nothing much tends to happen on a scuba island mid-morning. The dive boats are out and anyone too hungover to make the early dive had yet to surface. I wandered into Ohlala dive shop and found it deserted. Deserted that is except for Ben. He bade me sit down, made me a coffee and inducted me into his friendship circle (though current attendance was two). Now this wasn't me finally losing my grip on reality and conversing with an unimaginatively named alter-ego. Or if It was I had at least made him Dutch for some variety. And if you want to go down the road that all 'reality' is somewhat the p...

Chastening the dragon

Day 123 - Kuala Lumpur I have too much time to kill, too much time to think. Walking the city I find my path bending back towards The Step Inn yet debating the idea all the way. There was no-one sitting outside to catch me in my door-stepping madness. Its infatuation and it'll pass but in the moment it masqueraded as eternal love. Nice to be reminded that I have it in me if nothing else. Maybe I should have got the early bus but it was expensive and I wanted to save money. And, to be honest, to hold onto the slim chance of a farewell. But it's never coming. And that is the truly sad thing here. Everything else was fixed but it didn't need to end like this. I'm less certain of my decision to send that message than I was yesterday because the consequences are now fully realised. It's hard not to imagine how things might have been if I had held back. What was the purpose of it? The purity of of honesty seemed unimpeachable as if that were justification in itself. It...

Room 302

Day 120 - Kuala Lumpur Which animal would you be? The people round the table sip their beer, pass the joint and give their answers, A dragon I say. A goat she says. I the dragon, she the goat. If anything it feels the opposite right now. The next question comes, What makes you cry? It's turned into a an ice-breaker session at her hostel, People that want to be together but can't be My answers have gone from silly to soppy in a single bound but it was a reflexive answer, true and without guile. The irony of it hit me later. I'm going to bed she says. Pity, I think, I enjoy her company just that bit too much. Room 302 she says. In case it's easier to stay. Easier? Christ, I would find it very easy to stay. She has a boyfriend, I reluctantly know that. How easy would it be to know that and go anyway? I have another beer to consider my options and really, truly, to stop myself haring up the stairs after her. I sip and rationalise. It's probably nothing, j...

Total tea

Day 118 - Tanah Rata And as soon as I was inside I knew something wasn't right I let out a laugh through a grimace...I graphed. I'd met Cory the day before on my way down to the Cameron Highlands. They are, as the name suggests, highlands. They are not, as the name suggests, where Ferris's friend fled after wrecking his father's 1961 Ferrari GT California. They are, in fact, a fief of Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton and Malaysia. 'Call me Dave' he says to his friends. Dave and his family come here in the summer so the children can have luge lessons while he screws, serfs and eats pigs. Or some combination of those verbs and nouns. The temperature cools as you wind your way up to the tea plantations that blanket these hills and the air provided a nice respite from the coastal swelter. Resolved to find more ethical pursuits than the ex-Prime Minister I'd booked on a walking tour. Rainforest stills covers two thirds of the area and, while the forest here i...

Malaise

Day 113 - Georgetown Blues, oranges and pinks smeared the sky and a purple haze hung over the fields. The sun was rising slowly over over Southern Thailand and creating a scene of such delicate beauty that Turner could have painted it. It was just before 6AM and, sat in the vestibule of the the train, I could watch through the open door my time in Thailand running out. The train was hurtling (well, kind of) towards the Malaysian border and country number five. I'd contrived to miss my ferry off Ko Tao three days prior due to mixing up the arrival and departure times. One of the more burdensome aspects of solo travel is not having anyone to check your working out. It was a fuck-up and I may come to regret it more than I did at the time but it's also travel and pleasant chance often arrives after unforeseen events. The train gets me to Hat Yai and from there it is a bus over the border. As someone from Great Britain you can only really appreciate the wonder that is the Schenge...

You gonna come to Ko Phangan with me?..

Day 105 - Bangkok Bangkok...shit, I'm in Bangkok. Again. Economy of time necessitated that I skip Cambodia, the planning fallacy would not be defied in the greater scheme of things I had to admit. Economy of money necessitated that I fly back to Thailand's capital. I suspect that I'll never love it no matter how much time I spend there. Too big, too hot, too many stones that have been turned. peek-a-boodha With only a day to pass though I could suffer it one last time, tiny violins strike up. Wat Pho has a 46 metre reclining Buddha and while size isn't everything it was enough to get me through the door so I could wonder how they got it through the door. Stopping by Penguin Café Bar afterwards I found the alley leading down to it mysteriously blocked off. I crossed to the other side of the canal to get a better look. The owner was sitting on a concrete bollard watching a film crew bustling around his joint. He hadn't learned English in the 90 days since I was last...